‘Precious resource’

Acute sore throat, including pharyngitis and tonsillitis, can be caused by a bacterial or viral infection, with symptoms usually improving by themselves within a week.

New joint guidelines from NICE and Public Health England, which aim to limit the use of antibiotics, said doctors should only be prescribing the medicines for more severe cases that are likely to have been caused by a bacterial infection.

Most people should instead use pain relief drugs, which also include aspirin and ibuprofen, and certain throat lozenges, as well as drinking plenty of water and resting.

Prof Cliodna McNulty, head of PHE’s primary care unit, said: “Antibiotics are a precious resource and it’s important that they are only used when they are really needed.

“For a sore throat, evidence shows that antibiotics make little difference to length or severity of illness, unless symptoms are much more severe. While a sore throat can be painful, there are other ways to control the symptoms including taking paracetamol and medicated lozenges.”

NICE and PHE also said doctors should use set criteria to judge how likely it is that people have sore throats caused by bacterial infections.

This works by checking people for scores across a range of symptoms, which include fever, pus on tonsils, severely inflamed tonsils and the absence of a cough.

‘Post-antibiotic apocalypse’

England’s chief medical officer, Dame Prof Sally Davies, has previously warned of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse” where infections would become harder to treat and common medical procedures such as cancer treatments could become too risky.